Introduction: Manchester united is one of the most popular UK based soccer team which was founded in 1878 as Newton

Heath LYR Football club by the Carriage and Wagon department of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway depot at Newton Heath. The name was later changed to Manchester united in 1902. It was the first English football club to win the European Cup under the management of Matt Bubsy and from then onwards the club did not look back. The current manger, Alex Ferguson, has already won 37 major honors since he took over in 1986. Manchester united has now become a multi dollar revenue machine, an enterprise that has built a formidable fan base and turned fans passion into enduring brand loyalty and ultimately profits. As of July 2011, the club is number one in Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the world's 50 most valuable sports teams, valued at $1.86 billion. After being floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1991, the club was purchased by Malcolm Glazer in May 2005 in a deal valuing the club at almost 800 million. Manchester Uniteds ability to convert their brand recognition into profits is highly fragmented. The club was very successful in monetizing its popularity in Europe where the bulk of the revenues were generated from ticket sales and TV broadcasting rights. Peter Draper, Director of Marketing at Manchester United, describes the clubs brand strategy in unequivocally international terms. When you look at Manchester United, weve got 50 million fans worldwide, he explains. Currently, 90 percent of our business comes out of the UK, but 80 percent of the fan base is abroad. Theres clearly an opportunity for us there and so in order to be the worlds best soccer club we should quickly position our brand in those areas. The desire for international clubs to conquer new markets certainly represents one of the main factors as Asia hosts a third of the worlds populations and some of the fastest growing economies of the world. Professional football clubs such as Manchester united is aware of this and so in this early part of 20th century, the 134-year old club has gone offensive in its mission to build strong brand recognition in Bangladesh. They strongly believe that Bangladesh is a lucrative market where people have strong passion and love for football and so they are highly optimistic that they can strongly position the club as one of the best football club in the country.

Manchester Uniteds Asian Strategy: Sports business has reached a stage of maturity in their traditional market and so sports brand need to look for new profitable foreign markets. Manchester United has launched numerous marketing operations, including the establishment of overseas club-shops to sell branded football related and non related, building relationship with other global brands, participation in Asia based tournaments and tours, website promotions, the development of soccer schools and recruitment of south Asian players, not only to strengthen the squad but also for marketing potentials. Manchester Uniteds Et al have benefited from first mover advantage with a high level of brand awareness in the Asian market.

The big idea: The management feels Bangladesh is a lucrative market with lots of potential. The people are passionate football lovers and have huge interest in English and European clubs. As a result management thinks this is the perfect time to enter into this untapped market and make use of the first mover advantage.

So a very big opportunity lies as very few people are hardcore loyal and hence these people can easily be shifted to Manchester United fan base. In order to do so Manchester United needs to do the following things: Highlighting the need to give information to the clubs supporters as an effective method for generating brand loyalty. In order to do this, the company will have to do the advertise and promote heavily o Putting up billboards and posters of logo, key players at important places like 1. In front of school, colleges and universities 2. Restaurants and cafeterias 3. Busy locations like Mohakhali, Gulshan circle, Bannani etc 4. Shopping malls o Advertise in sports magazines and spots section of Newspapers such as 1. Prothom Alo 2. Daily star

3. The Financial express etc o o Launchings membership schemes in Bangladesh, similar to the one run by them in UK Launch Manchester Uniteds page on Facebook

Build a Soccer stadium at Gazipur which is of International standards. This will help them in different ways 1. Home venue advantage 2. Revenue on match days 3. Give it on rent for concerts, functions etc

Open up caf shops/restaurants in different parts of the country such as Bannani, Gulshan, Cox bazar etc. These restaurants would have only posters of the stars that played for ManU in the past

Sponsor some retail sports shop of Bangladesh. This will help in two ways 1. Sponsorship money 2. Sale of ManU jerseys

Partner with cell phone companies so that people can subscribe Manchester Uniteds latest updates

Develop and maintain websites which should be localized

Establish a Soccer school at Dhaka. The ManU players will train with other boys of the school. This will help to attract more young blood to ManUs Fan base.

The fans demand sporting success and one can only envisage a loss of brand equity were Manchester United to consistently under-perform against expectations. But, as long as top players continue to sign for the club, and success off the field is matched by championships and cup successes, this is a brand that looks to have a bright future for some time to come.

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